Projects and
design studies by 16 Kansas State University and University of Kansas students
enrolled in the Kansas City Design Center (KCDC) during the 2009-2010 academic
year are on display in the Chang Gallery of Seaton Hall.
Uncovering Potential: An
Investigation into Dimensions of the City
Kansas City Design Center
Urban Studio 2010
is open to the
public without charge through September 10. Hours of the Chang Gallery are
8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. weekdays.
This exhibition is
an attempt to generate an abbreviated summary perspective of two semesters of
study and work in the urban design studio at the KCDC. The pedagogical premise
of the studio was to use Kansas City as a “live-in” urban laboratory for
focusing and engaging critical urban design issues, thereby illuminating
contextual understanding of the purpose and the meaning of the subject of
design. The studio brief issued to students was titled “Urban Chess: Stratagems
for Critical Maneuvers.” It opposed the nostalgia of optimum density and built-up
grid desires to leaving the city “as is” through vacant building-turned-parking-lots
and laissez faire urban morphology. Many guest critics from the ranks of Kansas
City practitioners, communal stakeholders and fellow academics helped the
students in their quest.
The 2009-2010
studio was comprised of eight graduate students majoring in architecture,
landscape architecture, and interior architecture and product design from the
K-State College of Architecture, Planning and Design and eight architecture
students from the School of Architecture and Urban Design at the University of
Kansas. The studio addressed complex physical planning and design issues which
were relevant to change in metropolitan Kansas City.
The mission of
KCDC is to facilitate research, initiate informed discussion and provide
topical public programs to build greater understanding of the potential of
architecture, planning and urban design to improve the quality of life and
development in the Kansas City metropolitan region. KCDC is located at 1018
Baltimore in downtown Kansas City, Missouri.
Funding for the
KCDC is provided by the William T. Kemper Foundation and the Hall Family
Foundation of Kansas City, as well as DST Realty, 360 Architecture, Populous,
HNTB Architecture, Commerce Banks, the University of Kansas and Kansas State
University.
Vladimir Krstic,
professor of architecture at Kansas State University, was the 2009-2010 studio
instructor.
K-State student
participants in the 2009-2010 studio were:
Erica Besler and Shannon Williams, regional and community planning;
Rachel Duncan, Paul Folger and Amy Kinderknecht, architecture; Allison Gould
and Janelle Heideman, interior architecture and product design; and Steven
Holt, landscape architecture. All are May 2010 master’s degree recipients in
their respective disciplines.
KCDC Chang Exhibit Fall 2010
For more
information, contact:
Vladimir Krstic, 785.532.5953
Wendy Ornelas, 785.532.5950
CAPD@ksu.edu, 785.532.1090
